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Microsoft Letting Patents Move To Linux Firms
mnmlst notes a Wall Street Journal story (picked up at Total Telecom) on the move of some patents originally held by Microsoft to the Open Invention Network, where they will join a portfolio whose purpose is to inoculate open source companies against patent trolls. OIN is near a deal to buy 22 patents from another patent-protective group, Allied Security Trust, whose members include Verizon, Cisco, and HP. AST won the patents in a private auction Microsoft put on earlier. An AST executive says that "Microsoft presented the patents to potential bidders in its auction as relating to Linux." While OIN's acquisition of the patents will act to protect the Linux community, AST, by contrast, exists to protect only its corporate members, not the community as a whole. But by selling the patents to OIN, they are cooperating in the protection of Linux. And by allowing the patents to go to AST in the first place, Microsoft may (the article implies) be signaling at least their lack of active intent to disrupt the Linux marketplace.
why isn't microsoft doing everything possible to destroy linux? Is this a "saved apple" moment all over again??
This is a really expensive way to dodge a tiny part of the software patent problem, and it involves paying Microsoft millions. And for every such trick we win, how many did we lose?
The upcoming Bilski review is the first time in 28 years that the Supreme Court in the USA will review the patentability of software - that's were we can get a real victory. I'm working on an amicus brief which'll have to be submitted within about two weeks. If anyone wants to help, it would be very useful to expand the swpat.org wiki's information about studies which show the harm of software patents:
And to add more info about arguments for abolishing software patents:
This is our big chance and might be the last one for decades.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Comment removed based on user account deletion
take all the documentation of the patent, and put it in the public domain.
That's what a patent does in the first place!
It just provides monopoly protection for actually using said patent.
In fact, this was the whole point of patents. Say I invented lemonade. Without a patent, I'd keep it my secret family recipe for generations, and anyone who wanted to make lemonade would have to reverse engineer it -- but if someone did, I wouldn't be able to say much.
With a patent, I would publish the documentation ("It's just sugar, water, and lemon juice.") and then only I can make lemonade. Or I can license the recipe to others -- it's not like they don't know how to make it now, it's that they legally can't unless I let them.
If they were really serious about merely protecting the community, they'd give up the patent control entirely.
I'm not sure it's legally possible to do that, is the problem. Moreover, having a process patented provides clear documentation that you patented it first, thus putting the burden on anyone's infringing patent to prove that they invented it before you did.
No, my big problems with this are not that I think the result is bad, but because I think it should be unnecessary -- I highly doubt Microsoft has any stunning invention that Linux "stole" for which prior art doesn't exist a thousandfold, and even if there were, I'm not sure software patents should exist at all.
But if I'm going to accept that they exist, and that someone has to hold them, I'd much rather that someone not be Microsoft, no matter how legally binding their "covenant not to sue" is.
Though it would be pretty slimy if this new organization doesn't have some sort of "covenant not to sue." Maybe that's the motive? Blech, now I have to go wash the evil from my brain...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
He said it best:
“Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible.”
— meringuoid (568297) @ 2005-11-24 16:40 (#14107454)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Rethink your position. The point of defensive patents is to leverage what you have to make up for what you don't have.
If you sue me over patent A, I can countersue you over patent B, and force you to settle with me amicably in a sharing arrangement.
If I give away by patent B so that unicorns dance among sunshine and rainbow farts, then I end up fucked when you sue me over patent A. I am also powerless to help anyone else in the open source community being attacked over patent A, because I gave away my leverage to the public domain.
I'm all for beating swords into plowshares, but if you're likely to show up and stab me with your sword, I better keep my sword around, too.
Inside Mac OS X Snow Leopard: 64-bits
This possibility is why Mono is dangerous, and why Microsoft's promise not to sue is worthless. Since the promise not to sue is not a patent license, it doesn't bind any future purchasers of Microsoft's patents on .Net.
All Microsoft has to do is sell a couple of their more critical patents to patent trolls, after first granting themselves and all the Microsoft .Net users a suitable non-revokable license to them. *BANG*! No more Mono, and all the apps written for it become illegal to run in the US - unless you run them on Microsoft .Net. This is perfectly safe for Microsoft since they and their customers are protected by the patent licenses.